VENGEANCE! The Musical! The Story of Uchiha Sasuke
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Summary: The Sandaime insists eight year-old Sasuke get therapy. Iruka decides to make him participate in a theater production. So how does this lead to a smash hit musical about how he’s going to kill Itachi? CRACK!
1. Sasuke In Leather Pants

A/N: From the same twisted mind that bought you**_ Suit Up!, It makes Sense!, Sakura's Harem, _****_Eureka_****_ No Mahou Sensei, Raikiri Triken, _**and **_Tendo Akane, Master Detective_**…

I was going to do something about how you can't tell if a Hyuuga has a concussion because they have no pupils, but decided that wasn't funny enough. This also has absolutely nothing to do with **_Glee_** (I think the cheerleader coach person looks like an evil Ellen Degeneres). It actually comes from the episode of **_Batman Beyond_** where Terry takes Bruce to see Batman the Musical, with a touch of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog and Barney Stinson's Suit Song…

Enjoy!

- -

**_VENGEANCE!_** The Musical! The Story of Uchiha Sasuke!

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 1: 'Opening Night' or 'Sasuke's Wearing Leather'

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. I'm not claiming credit nor making money from it. Quite the opposite. Please don't sue me. Would you like to visit the TvTropes Crowning Moment of Funny page (tvtropes. org/ pmwiki/ pmwiki. php/ Funny/Fanfic)?

- -

The urban myth about it was pretty well known, and surprisingly accurate. Then again, considering ninja were the ones doing the passing on, it was no surprise someone at some point did the research. Besides, it gets weird enough on its own anyway.

The story is told that one day, not so long after the Uchiha Massacre, the Sandaime Hokage was seem forcibly dragging a bawling Uchiha Sasuke to see the therapist, since little Sasuke had not been attending his sessions. No one was quite sure what went on during those sessions, since therapists have that confidentiality thing, and the Hokage stayed in the waiting room, but Sasuke eventually admitted that it was during those sessions he'd get the idea for his show.

The story is also told that one day, little Sasuke was forcibly assigned by one of his teachers to participate in a dramatic recreation of how Konoha was founded. He'd sat around, watching the other children yelling at each other and getting at cross purposes until, apparently, he snapped and took over. He'd apparently set them straight, organizing them into groups and taking over the directing, choreographing and, eventually, the lead role.

It all started right there…

- -

It was a tradition. Kisame wasn't quite sure how it had gotten started. If Itachi remembered, he wasn't admitting it.

"Pocky?" he offered to his fellow disguised missing-nin with a wide smile. Getting into Konoha was relatively easy, since Itachi was so familiar with the holes in their system, and it was always a bit lax on the opening night of the season.

Itachi gave him a cold look. "No," he said in a barely civil voice, primly adjusting his grip on the umbrella that went with his disguise. "Must you keep reminding me of that incident? You were there when I swore off Pocky forever."

"It was only one pack of poisoned _senbon_…" Kisame said, but didn't press the point as he ate one. Ah, chocolate. It made waiting in line much more bearable.

And there was quite a long line to wait in. _Vengeance! The Musical!_ Was _the_ most popular musical stage show in Konoha, perhaps even in the continent. It was what had gotten people interested in live performances again, when it looked like the classical theatrical arts were dying in favor of Princess Fuun movies and TV shows about people who ate other people's brains to learn their _Kekkei Gekai_. They'd gotten their tickets from a scalper they knew, since it was too much of a risk to go up to the box office. Konoha had good security but they had _nothing_ on private citizens with a butt-load of money to protect.

"I wonder what they added in this year," Kisame said conversationally as they got to their seats. "I particularly liked how you had a ghost army at your command two years ago. That was a very complicated piece of special effects."

"They say Sasuke-sama's going to be playing a starring roll again this year," the woman seated next to Kisame said.

Behind them, Itachi heard several rows of females let out a loud "SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" like some kind of herd of vicious pack predators.

"Kisame," he said, most definitely _not_ turning to glare at the swordsman next to him. "Why are we seated in the fangirl section?"

"Hey, the tickets were cheaper!"

"After this show, for the next 72 hours I am going to beat you to death with this umbrella."

- -

_The population first became aware of things being plotted when the rumor got around that Uchiha Sasuke was gay._

_"**SAY WHAT?**" was the response of the female half of the population._

_"**Hah! **I **knew **it!" was the response of most of the other half._

_"**YES!!!**" was the response of the rest._

_And several months later, in some distant part of the continent, Itachi proceeded to get drunk as he considered that maybe he'd overdone traumatizing his brother. Orochimaru, meanwhile, was sprucing up and planning his approach._

_Eventually, he'd snuck off to Konoha to see what exactly was going, since the rumors (Sasuke had bought an elephant, Sasuke had joined a theater group, Sasuke had gotten a boob job…) had been getting progressively more ludicrous and insane by the time they'd reached whatever end of the world he happened to be occupying. He'd snuck into Konoha as quietly as possible, and had wondered about how easy it was. He'd also wondered about all the people who were obviously tourists. There were pale people from Yuki, dark-skinned ones from Kumo, a few fishy-smelling ones from Ocean…_

_Itachi was just wondering if maybe he'd mistaken the timing and they were holding the chuunin exam when he turned a corner and stopped dead, staring at the giant billboard that can come into view. He stood there, trying to wrap his mind around the idea as people bumped into him, muttering about fanboys being worse than fangirls. He barely heard them, too traumatized by what he was seeing._

_Before him as a large picture of Sasuke and a bunch of other people in various costumes. He seemed to be fighting a tall and rather evil-looking person who had the most cheesily evil smirk on his face. There where lines at the edges of his cheekbones and with a start Itachi realized it was supposed to be **him**. A small, compartmentalized part of him noted that at least part of his plan had worked: his beloved brother certainly had a highly villainous perception of him._

_He hoped that was what the five-inch nails painted acid green, fangs and weird dress/armor with wings combo poster-Itachi was wearing meant, anyway._

_Then again, poster-Sasuke wasn't much better, wearing a full-body leather outfit, enough belts and buckles for a thousand pairs of shoes, and enough black make-up to make any goth vampire-wannabe proud. Itachi had been gone from Konoha for a while, but he was sure it wasn't **that** long. His brother was still ten, right?_

_Then the rest of the poster came into focus, and he nearly went catatonic all over again. 'Vengeance! The Musical!' What the heck? He read the blurbs._

_'…outrageously funny…!' – The Konoha Times_

_'…intensely vengeful and cathartic! A must for all members…!' –Traumatized Anonymous, Konoha Chapter_

_'…two thumbs up…!' – Jiraiya-sama of the Sannin_

_'…highly accurate depictions of human internal anatomy…!' Will of __Fire General__Hospital_

_'…highly accurate depictions of torture and human internal anatomy…!' – Konoha Torture and Interrogation_

_'**VERY YOUTHFUL!!!!**' – Jounin Maito Gai._

_Itachi wasn't sure what it said about him that the last line terrified him the most. Probably that he was a normal person. _

- -

The lights dimmed, and the music began to rise, putting the two's argument on hold. Flame-effects flickered, the curtains rose, and a theater full of women '_SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_'-ed as Sasuke appeared. Itachi was never going to get over that full-body leather outfit Sasuke wore. He'd somehow added more buckles this year, and there were chain bracelets now, and pendants, and an earring now. That was a new one.

"_I stand here all alone,_" Sasuke sang, and there was more subdued '_SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_''-age. "_Amidsts the ashes of youth, I am justice–"_

"_Justice! _"cried the chorus.

_"– I am vengeance–_"

"_VENGEANCE!_"

"_– I am the last man…_"

"He _so_ wants to call himself Batman," Kisame snickered.

Itachi rapped his umbrella on the shark-man's knuckles. He wasn't allowing anyone to ruin his brother's opening night.

- -

_Itachi had needed to turn off his Sharingan at least twelve times in the first song of the opening act alone, the emotional stress was getting to him so badly. That **couldn't**__be his little brother. Not this kid. His little brother was sweet and shy and charming, and he was pretty sure nothing he'd done could possibly change what his little brother was at heart. His little brother did **not**__sing and dance in public, and he especially didn't do so while wearing a leather fetishist's wet dream._

_He watched as Sasuke went through a 'dramatic' rendition of the death of their clan. He was **absolutely** sure that Sasuke had definitely **not** picked up a sword that had been lying around in the background during their confrontation– such as it had been– and proceeded to duel him with much acrobatic proficiency, dramatic background music, and all the while holding a conversation with him about his ingratitude and his lack of loyalty and familial love. And he couldn't quite remember what he'd shown Sasuke when he'd used the Tsukuyomi, but it certainly hadn't involved red-clad muscular men in pitchforks dancing in circles around is brother while singing to the accompaniment of drums. Or half-naked women draped all over him as he stood back and laughed, for that matter. And where had those back-up dancers been?_

_The intermission came soon after he'd traumatized Sasuke and left– and he certainly didn't remember his words being that long, or that eloquent, or him segueing midway into it to rap about how he was such a bad-ass– right after a kneeling Sasuke gave the crowd a long monologue about his feelings and the pain and anguish of betrayal, and about how he was going to get his revenge, and what he had for breakfast, interspersed every so often with songs about how injured he was. By the time the curtain went down, Itachi was absolutely stunned._

_His little brother had gotten all A+ that year? Whoa…_

- -

"I like last year's swordfight better," Kisame said as they bought refreshments during the intermission. "You know, the one where they used those foils and there were shadows in the background. Very dramatic. Though this year's fight with the lightsabers was good too," he hastened to add. Itachi could be surprisingly touchy about a play that went out of its way to villain-ize him.

"I miss the elephant they had on the first season," Itachi said.

"Hard to believe your brother's a ninja," Kisame said.

Itachi glared. "What do you mean by that?"

"He's so… theater. And he wears leather all the time."

"I see no problem with that. Besides, _you_ always wear sharkskin."

"Well, of course, it's my _skin_!"

- -

**- To be continued...**

- -

A/N: The silliness will continue. I wanted to make this a one-shot, but decided not to.

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	2. Imitators and Substitutes

_**VENGEANCE!**_ The Musical! The Story of Uchiha Sasuke!

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 2: Imitators and Substitutes

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. I'm not claiming credit nor making money from it. Quite the opposite. Please don't sue me. Would you like to visit the TvTropes Crowning Moment of Funny page (tvtropes. org/ pmwiki/ pmwiki. php/ Funny/Fanfic)? Yes, I'm shameless. It's a side-effect of the massive crack infusion.

* * *

As with every success story, '_VENGEANCE!_' spawned imitators hoping to cash in on the craze. While it helped to restore theater from being a nearly nonexistent medium known only to the close-to-dead, academics and school children, those who tried to outdo it found themselves sadly lacking. Mist Country's '_The Magnificent Seven Swordsmen_' was an initial success, going on for a couple of seasons, but when the two main leads tried to renegotiate their contract for more money and things got ugly, ending with one leaving and the other following shortly thereafter after an attempted coup, leaving the production to collapse when he took the main special effects expert (they used a lot of dramatic fog and snow effects) with him. Their attempted follow-up, '_Silence of the Clams_', didn't live up to the hype. Itachi thought Kisame was surprisingly easygoing about the experience, when he talked about it.

Others simply suffered from hack writing. The 'epic love story' that was supposed to be '_Ranma and Juriko_', about the feud between two shinobi clans in the same village that was the backdrop for the forbidden, star-crossed love-affair between the two clan heirs that ended in mutual suicide because of a contrived number of coincidences and misunderstandings, that somehow managed to end the feud between the two families, was panned by civilians and shinobi alike, with the former offended by the portrayal of the civilian nurses and monk, and the shinobi decrying the stupidity of the characters not being able to cope with simple situations that any academy student knew how to deal with. And everybody knows there's no way for that sort of thing to end a blood feud!

Suna managed to avert this by specializing in puppet theater, spawning their own breed of loyal fans and coincidentally also getting more new students interested in the art of combat puppetry. This was, unfortunately, a result of the massacre on opening night of Suna's '_West Sand Story_' (about rival ANBU teams and the star-crossed romance of the sister of the member of one team and a former member of the other…). Apparently, it had been a bad idea for the Kazekage's family to be in attendance. Gaara had not liked all those people snapping their fingers in the opening sequence. He thought they were doing wrong, and showed them how it was done. Hilarity ensued.

Then there were those who based their plays on popular novels. Specifically, Jiraiya's. The less said, the better…

* * *

_Itachi bought several candies of the gummy variety to chew on as the play continued, just to have something that would put all his pent up energy to use (for some reason, there were no potato chips available. Something about nasal cavity hazards…). They'd picked up right where the intermission left off, to Konoha villagers singing happy songs about how what a wonderful day it was, and wasn't it sad what had happened to the Uchiha boy? Sasuke, apparently living in the streets despite being the last legal heir of all– well, most of, anyway– the clan's legal assets, sang about how awful he felt. The word 'vengeance' came up a lot. Itachi, mind finally being cleared a bit by the sugar, was coming to grips with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, parts of this was poetic license. Sasuke __**certainly**__hadn't been able to dance that well when he was eight. _

_He __**had**__ looked that girly, though…_

* * *

Naruto breathed a sigh of relief as the curtain dropped for the first intermission. He found himself fumbling in his pocket for a can of his fix, only to remember too late it wouldn't be there. "Stupid intervention," he muttered to himself, drumming his fingers on the edge of his clipboard. "And before opening night, too! I picked a bad time to stop eating Play-Doh…"

The producer– technically assistant executive producer, since Sasuke did a lot of the producing anyway– grabbed his clipboard, waving frantically at stagehands to move the sets. They were already doing it, but he had to justify his existence somehow. At least there weren't any bulls or bats or, heavens help them, a flock of flamingoes on the script this week.

Girls rushed to get Sasuke seated, bringing him a bottle of chilled water, fanning him, retouching his makeup… if he wasn't so busy, Naruto would have been annoyed at all the female attention _not_ being directed at him. As it was, he was busy making sure things went smoothly.

To one side, the head of wardrobe was helping 'Itachi' out of costume. Itachi was actually two people, one sitting on the other's shoulder. The play was known for it's radical, revolutionary, cutting edge, and occasionally flat-out insane ideas, and casting was no exception. No one had thought Hyuuga Hinata would be capable of the large-ham acting the role needed, but within a week Sasuke had had her monologueing like some sort of manga supervillain and playing up her lines with the best of them– onstage, anyway.

Naruto directed some people to get her to her fainting couch– which she actually did use when she fainted from mortification during intermission and after shows– while he went to make sure her partner, Rock Lee, was calmed down enough not to be heard from the lobby. _He_ was a work in progress. Though graceful enough for the needed fight scenes and such, and his eyes and eyebrows were _certainly_ creepy enough for Sasuke's exacting standards of villainy, he had absolutely no sense of delivery, and ad-libbed horribly. That is, he was horrible at it. He seemed happy enough being on the bottom. Naruto supposed that unless Hinata got taller tomorrow, they'd have to train someone else to be her legs ASAP, what with Lee planning on becoming a full-time ninja and all. This was actually his last night.

As would he eventually, Naruto reminded himself. Maybe even this year. After all, he was just doing this for ramen money in between classes. He was going to graduate, become a kick-ass ninja, and rise to Hokage, darn it!

He kept telling himself that as his hand unconsciously groped for an absent little plastic Play-Doh canister…

* * *

_No one had been able to understand why Sasuke had invited Naruto to work on the play with him. At least, the boy certainly didn't have any redeeming qualities, in the eyes of most people. This was actually what had triggered the rumors that Sasuke was gay, though his first appearance in his now-trademark (officially) leather outfit had made the rumors mainstream. _

_He would soon become known as the Demon of the Theater, for his relentless pursuit of everyone getting things right and his tendency to lecture people long into the night. Rumor whispered that e had red eyes that was supposedly caused by leakage of his demonic charka. In truth, it was from sleep deprivation, stress and caffeine. Ichiraku had invented a new coffee ramen just for him…_

* * *

Zabuza slouched as he waited for his weapon to come back and intermission to end, feeling naked without his cleaver even with the formal-wear he was wearing. Haku had gone off to scam refreshments out of the food people. He had declined to watch. It was royally creepy, how the boy managed to pull off a backless evening dress while at the same time charming people with his non-existent assets. He wondered why he put himself through this every year. It was the show that led to the show that ruined his life after all. Speaking of which…

"Well, well… fancy seeing you here, Zabuza."

Zabuza's eyes narrowed in knee-jerk suspicion, before relaxing as he recognized Kisame's voice. "Kisame," he said civilly. "Enjoying the show?"

"Oh yes," the other ex-Magnificent Seven Swordsman said. "Though I was kind of hoping they'd bring back the elephant this year."

"I like the one with the juggling nin-flamingos, myself," Zabuza admitted. "And the exploding blue penguins."

"Zabuza-san," Haku chirped as he came back with their food. "Here are you lollipops! Oh, hello Kisame-san!"

Kisame blinked, then looked between Zabuza, to Haku, to Zabuza, to the lollipops, to Haku, and back to Zabuza again. "I always knew there was a reason you took the special effects guy with you when you ran…"

"Kisame, the intermission is almost over. Let's go. I want to make it back to our seats without having to go through a crowd of fangirls," Itachi said as he suddenly appeared behind the shark-man.

Zabuza made a big show of looking between Kisame, to Itachi, to Kisame, to the thick, heavy umbrella Itachi was carrying, to Itachi, and back to Kisame again. "You were saying?"

"Let's let that one go, shall we?"

Intermission ended, and the show continued…

* * *

_Itachi began to wonder how much of this Sasuke had put in to deliberately creep him out. The nightmare dance-sequence with the teenager in the chuunin vest who looked disturbingly like Orochimaru dancing with reanimated corpses of dead Uchiha __**must**__ be meant for him. Sasuke knew zombies creeped him out…!_

_Next to him, Itachi heard a minor court noble muttering how amateurish and childish the whole production was._

_Itachi made a note to kill him after the show was over. _

_His wife agreed, harrumphing quite loudly._

_Itachi decided he'd strangle her with her own fur boa. _

* * *

This year, there were flaming motorcycles. As in, motorcycles that were on fire.

Itachi wondered who Sasuke had taken into his confidence, entrusting them with this, the most sacred of Uchiha Katon-jutsu. The Flaming-Motorcycle-To-Impress-Chicks-Summoning-Technique was a closely guarded secret, right up there with the secret of how they kept their hair perfectly straight and shiny with nary a loose strand.

He was less curious about how his brother had apparently trained blindfolded nin-dogs to drive the things. This was Konoha, after all.

"That. Is Badass." Kisame declared, jaw slack.

He then had to reevaluate his opinion when the dual-chainsaw wielding Kunoichi in wet t-shirts stepped onstage. Sasuke's soliloquy on what an evil douche-bag his brother was as he tap-danced between the battling groups never broke stride.

The dialogue never really changed, though they changed the backdrop of events they were recited against every month. It was what made the show so enduringly popular. Every month people came back to see what their 'new thing' was, and they were rarely disappointed. Itachi, not having the benefit of being a hunted missing-nin unfortunately was only able to attend the opening night of the season, and if he was lucky the closing night. They usually reserved the best gimmicks for those times.

"_It's a brand new day,_

_Itachi, JUST DIE!_

_Your EVIL shall end this night!_

_My VENGEANCE is rising,_

_You will see my light!_

_It's a brand new day!_"

Though to be fair, the singing was always good no matter what the time, though they re-mixed the music often to give it variety. He found himself tapping his feet to the beat, though he drew the line at actually singing along. Singing to the catchy tune of how you were going to get killed was just… wrong, even by ninja standards.

He settled back in his seat as Kisame began making shaking his arms, bobbing his head back and forth and swaying to the beat. He wasn't the only one. Itachi contented himself with foot-taping as he ate his little gummy candies.

* * *

**- To be continued...**

* * *

A/N: You people have _NO_ idea how hard the temptation to make Haku female was to resist…

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


	3. Shameless Merchandizing

_**VENGEANCE!**_ The Musical! The Story of Uchiha Sasuke!

by Shadow Crystal Mage

Chapter 3: Shameless Merchandizing

Disclaimer: Naruto is not mine. I'm not claiming credit nor making money from it. Quite the opposite. Please don't sue me. Would you like to visit the TvTropes Crowning Moment of Funny page (tvtropes. org/ pmwiki/ pmwiki. php/ Funny/Fanfic)? Yes, I'm shameless. It's a side-effect of the massive crack infusion.

...

After all this, there was the merchandizing.

Commercials versions of Sasuke's leather outfit as seen on the posters began selling like _kunai_. The leather industry never had it so good.

Everyone else was treated to the sight of Akamichi+ sized people wearing tight leather. The blind never had it so good.

This being a ninja-village however, it didn't stop there. Other popular products that shot off from the play were: grenades in the shape of blue penguins, glowing 'lightsaber' rapiers (which saw an upswing in genin injuries for those stupid enough to bring perpetually glowing swords on stealth missions), toilet paper with Itachi's face printed into each square (the company would later diversify into other hated figures, such as certain Councilors, famous enemy ninja, and of course Naruto. He sued them for using his likeness, and demanded his percentage of the proceeds), and various novelty weapons that, this being a ninja village, actually worked (thereby reviving the much beleaguered mallet industry).

...

_The final curtain finally dropped to thunderous applause, people rising in their seats and whistling appreciatively. A steady, appreciative buzz of conversation rose as people began leaving the theater, talking about heir favorite part of it._

"… _Sasuke-kun in skin-tight leather…"_

"… _did you SEE those girls in the…?"_

"… _the one playing that villain whatsisname was pretty hot. Do you think he's single…?"_

"… _Sasuke-kun in skin-tight leather…"_

"… '_I do it for the evulz'! I never thought Itachi to have a catchphrase, but his little brother would know, wouldn't he…? "_

"_SO YOUTHFUL!-!-!-!-!"_

"… _Sasuke-kun in skin-tight leather…"_

"…_and then there was Sasuke riding the zombie T-rex…!-!-!"_

"… _zombie werewolves….!"_

"… _killed all of Itachi's sparkly vampires…!-!-!-!"_

"_SASUKE-KUN IN SKIN-TIGHT LEATHER!-!-!-!"_

"_All right you shota-con, we get it!"_

_And so, everyone went home, with the ANBU following the talkative shota-con just in case. The theater closed for the night._

_And an hour later, Itachi finally blinked, closing his dry mouth and them spitting out the fly that had made it's home in one of his back molars where a little bit of candy was stuck. He slowly rose from his seat, woodenly turning toward the nearest exit. Clearly, the Hokage wasn't living up to his end of their bargain. There will be __**JUSTICE!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!**_

_Itachi counted the overabundance of exclamation marks and didn't care. He had a RIGHT to a disturbed mind!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-!_

...

The final curtain finally dropped to thunderous applause, people rising in their seats and whistling appreciatively. A steady, appreciative buzz of conversation rose as people began leaving the theater, talking about heir favorite part of it.

"SASUKE-KUN IN SKIN-TIGHT LEATHER!-!-!-!"

"… shouldn't you be in jail…?"

"… Itachi's dress was so _**COOL.**_ It must be mine…!"

"… do they sell chainsaws like that, you think…?"

"… I hear they're merchandising all the weapons now too, so yeah……? "

"SO YOUTHFUL!-!-!-!-!"

"GAI-SENSEI! YOU CAME!"

"… _**I**__ WANT TO LEARN THE FROZEN-TURKEY-FALLING-FROM-HEAVEN-SUMMONING-TECHNIQUE_…!-!-!-!-!-!"

"…and then there was Sasuke riding the zombie T-rex…!-!-!"

"… zombie werevelciraptors….!"

"… killed all of Itachi's chlorine elementals…!-!-!-!"

"_It's a brand new day….!_"

Itachi, Kisame, Zabuza and Haku lay back on their seats, letting the utter awesomeness they'd just viewed simmer as they waited for the aisles to clear. "Once again, _SO_ worth it!" Kisame sighed happily.

"Indeed," Itachi agreed, happy homicidal lyrics dancing in his ears.

"I _want_ that dress…" Haku sighed dreamily.

"Haku, we've talked about this…" Zabuza said.

"You _wish_ you can look good as me," Itachi told the disturbingly androgynous mist-nin.

"Don't encourage him, Uchiha."

...

_Sarutobi Hiruzen was in his office, working on the last of his papers and wondering if he could make time to go to the theater the next day when the door suddenly burst open, and a pissed Uchiha Itachi crossed the threshold, slamming the door behind him. "Hokage-sama," he said threateningly, "we need to talk."_

_Sarutobi (technically, we could call him Hiruzen, but the conventions of more than nine years of this fandom are tough to shed, and really, it's hard to think of him as anything but Sarutobi), with the strength of will that comes from being a world class ninja (and therefore having the insanely huge selection of jutsu to choose from to kill and/or destroy every annoying problem, paper-pusher and councilperson in his life but the resolve not to do so), years of handling Konoha's paperwork (see previous), and dealing with Naruto (you get the idea), didn't allow himself to show fear, even though he knew he was closer to death than ever before, or at least since the last time he'd gone to the theater without an oxygen tank. "Itaschi-kun. Have a seat. I suppose I've been expecting this conversation, though I really wished otherwise. This is very dangerous for you, after all…"_

"_Dangerous? My little brother is dancing around in a shota-con leather-fetishist's– no, scratch that– he's dancing around looking like Orochimaru's wettest dream! We are past 'dangerous' and are well into '__**WHAT THE FUCK!-!-!-!-**__' territory! You better have a good explanation, or I swear, I'm burning this village into a hole in the ground! So start explaining!-!-!" _

_After a beat, because Itachi's mother raised him right, he added, "Please." But he managed to say it in a very rude tone._

"_If it makes you feel any better, this wasn't what I had in mind when I recommended he find some outlet for his emotions. I blame the therapist," Sarutobi said. "You see, it all started like this…"_

...

After Haku had dragged Zabuza off to try to find a dress in his size– some marketing genius had decided that a store across the street from the theater that was still open was just the thing everyone needed– Itachi and Kisame wandered off with the intention of leaving the village ASAP.

At least, that was the intention, until they spotted a tall, pale, willowy woman with long black hair and wearing a backless pink dress. She clutched her purse primly as she made her way to wear a line leading backstage was forming, a small pass in her hands. She looked exactly like the sort of person to put on a pair of glasses and yell "Co-BRA!" or some other battlecry relating to vaguely serpentine reptiles.

Itachi stepped smoothly into her path. "Hello, Orochimaru. What have I told you about trying to molest my little borther?"

Orochimaru pouted. It had to be the hair, Itachi decided. That had to be how the snake-sannin and Haku managed to pull of backless dresses. Any other alternative lay madness. "Itachi. Shouldn't you be off somewhere being completely useless since no one has to go after the Kyuubi until last?"

"Do you want Konan to know you've been stealing from her closet?" Itachi countered.

"I have _NOT! _This is Pain's," Orochimaru said, huffing primly.

"Do you want Konan to know you've been raiding her boy's closet, then?"

"… Damn you."

"Get in line. Now why don't you get back to plotting your ridiculously phallic vengeance against the village, and I'll go work on building an army of chlorine elementals."

Orochimaru growled, but turned, nose in the air and hair flowing around like a shampoo commercial. Itachi resisted the urge to ask what brand the other ninja used.

"I wonder what brand he uses?" Kisame mused as he sidled next to his partner. Partner, that is, purely in the cooperative sense, and in none other. Nope, definitely none other.

They watched as Orochimaru flounced into the store across the street, only to be waylaid by Haku, who began talking excitedly. From what they could make out, the conversation had to do with hair.

"Come on, Kisame," Itachi said, twirling his umbrella and getting into character, walking towards the gates with the dapper and slightly brainless stride of a gentleman of leisure. "Let us leave Konoha, It's getting a bit too weird for me."

"I thought you lived here."

"I did. Why do you think I killed my entire clan so I'd have an excuse to stay away?"

...

"_YOU ASSIGNED MAITO GAI AS HIS THERAPIST?" Itachi screamed._

"_He's very good with children," Saurotbi said defensively. "They like him. What's the worse that could have happened?"_

"_IT WAS MAITO GAI!" Itachi said, self-evidently. "And since when was he a qualified therapist?"_

"_Kakashi dared him to do it," Sarutobi said. "Something about how Gai would never be able to qualify in a year. Besides, it was either him or Anko. Who knows what would have happened if we left him under her care?_

"_He'd have become a vengeance-driven workaholic seeking tirelessly to put me out of my misery," Itachi snapped. "You know, like I'd __**wanted**__?" A beat. "Since when was __**Mitarashi Anko **__a therapist?"_

"_I thought working with children would be good for her, plus the training would help her get over her problems," Sarutobi said, squirming self-consciously. "It was something for her to do while we took her out of active duty."_

"_Why did I think my clan trying to destroy the reigning status quo was a bad idea again?" Itachi said._

...

**- To be continued...**

...

A/N: And that's why Maito Gai and Mitarashi Anko are allowed to be a ninja despite their more-obvious-than-usual mental quirks. They faked their own paperwork.

Please review, C&C welcome.

Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.


End file.
